San Jose Giants
The San Jose Giants are a minor league baseball team in San Jose, California]. They are a Class A - Advanced team in the Northern Division of the California League, and have been a farm team of the San Francisco Giants since 1988. Home games are played at San Jose Municipal Stadium. The Giants join a long line of San Jose based California League teams dating back to the league's inception including: # San Jose Bees (1983–87) # San Jose Expos (1982) # San Jose Missions (1979–81) (Pacific Coast League 1977-78) # San Jose Bees (1962–76) # San Jose Pirates (1958) # San Jose JoSox (1956–57) # San Jose Red Sox (1947–55) # San Jose Owls (1942) and nearby Santa Clara, California hosted the Santa Clara Angels and Santa Clara Padres in the late 1970s/early 1980s period. Team history Since the team's inception, the San Jose Giants have been one of the more successful teams in the California League. They captured the league championship in 1998, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2009 and most recently in 2010. In 2005 and once again in 2007 after being down 2-0 in the best of 5 series, came back home and won the final three games over Lake Elsinore Storm to claim the Championship Series 3-2. (In 2001 the Giants were declared co-champions with the Lake Elsinore Storm after the final series was canceled after the September 11 terrorist attacks). The team has also made the California League playoffs numerous times and won the Northern Division championship 8 times. The Giants also had the best record of any minor league class A team in the 1990s. This has shown at the turnstile as attendance has increased 14 of the last 17 years. The SJ Giants are now in their 25th season being affiliated with the San Francisco Giants. This makes the SJ Giants affiliation the longest currently enjoyed by a team in the California League. 2008 marked a second highest team record attendance of 183,788 for the season. On August 27, 2009, San Jose Giants fan Ramon Valle helped make history becoming the 200,000th fan in attendance for the 2009 season. San Jose Giants have developed more than 115 major league players, including Buster Posey, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez, Matt Cain, Brian Horwitz, Noah Lowry, Merkin Valdez, Chad Zerbe, Russ Ortiz, Bill Mueller, Doug Mirabelli, Rod Beck, Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, Shawn Estes, Emmanuel Burriss, Andrés Torres, and Pablo Sandoval. In addition, many players on the Kansas City Royals teams of the 70's and 80's, such as George Brett, Amos Otis, and Dennis Leonard, knew their way to San Jose. San Jose Giants games are very much rooted in the older traditions of baseball. Fans sit very close to the field, general admission seating is available for games, players sign autographs before every game, and the outfield walls are lined with advertisements much like the stadiums of the 1920s and 30s were. A simple scoreboard shows basic game data like runs, strikes, balls, and outs. This was updated in 2005 to feature lights to denote the count rather than numbers much like Fenway Park in Boston. The out-of-town scoreboard for other California League games is also hand hung. In 2006, the simple scoreboard was replaced with a 21-by-15-foot video screen costing $500,000, and the hand hung out-of-town scoreboard is no longer used. Between innings, fans are treated to all manner of little games and entertainment, such as a tire toss, a child footrace around the bases, or throwing a baseball at a truck for prizes. The San Jose Giants also added a mascot, Gigante, for the 2006 season. Another unique feature of San Jose Giants games is the "beer batter." A batter from the opposing team is designated the "beer batter." If the San Jose pitcher strikes out that batter, beer is half price in the beer only lines for the 15 minutes immediately following the strike out. The beer batter promotion is in effect only for the first six innings of the game. The PA system plays Beer Barrel Polka ("roll out the barrel") whenever the beer batter comes to the plate and after every strike during the beer batter's at-bat (through the first six innings). After the sixth inning, the beer batter becomes the apple juice batter and if he strikes out, fans get half-priced Martinelli's apple juice. San Jose Giants games were often the home of Krazy George. George is a well known "fan" in the San Francisco Bay Area who attends not only SJ Giants games but also many of the MLS, MLB, NFL, NHL, and NCAA football games in the region. His claim to fame is being the creator of "the wave" in Oakland on October 15, 1981 where fans rise and wave their arms in sequence around a stadium thus created a wave like effect when viewed from a distance. Current roster Notable alumni *Gil Heredia, 1988 *Rod Beck, 1989 *Mark Leonard, 1988 *Steve Decker, 1988–89 *Royce Clayton, 1989–90 *Pat Rapp, 1991 *Mike Myers, 1992 *Doug Mirabelli, 1992–93 *Shawn Estes, 1995 *Keith Foulke, 1995 *Bobby Howry, 1995 *Russ Ortiz, 1995–96 *Jason Grilli, 1997 *Scott Linebrink, 1997 *Joe Nathan, 1998 *Ryan Vogelsong, 1998–99 *Noah Lowry, 2002 *Matt Cain, 2004 *Nate Schierholtz, 2004–05 *Tim Lincecum, 2006 *Sergio Romo, 2007 *Pablo Sandoval, 2007–08 *Madison Bumgarner, 2009 *Buster Posey, 2009\ References External links * Category:Minor League Baseball teams Category:California League teams Category:Teams in California Category:San Francisco Giants affiliates Category:Advanced A Baseball Teams